Quad SLI

[rallynavvie]

FYI:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/IO_30228.html


Ack, I can't even roll my eyes hard enough at that.

[ofbarea]

Sneak Preview of NVIDIA Quad GPU Graphics

December 14, 2005 20:37
Dual graphics solutions using SLI are yesterday's news - quad rendering is in! Asus' muscle-card combines two GeForce 7800 GT chips on one board. Pair two of these cards up in SLI mode, and you get a "Quad GPU" system. Of course, not everyone has $1,600 to spend just on their graphics subsystem.

[Cobra]

I'm finding that games are now beginning to require a user to spend a fortune on graphics cards. It's not a case of having plenty of "spread" quality-wise - it's either eye-candy or low framerates.

[rallynavvie]

And that's why I think this quad-SLI nonsense is complete rubbish. I'm worried that with these stupid advancements in SLI that soon the minimum requirements for a game will exceed what a single video card can put out, thus necessitating multiple video cards and forcing people to spend double on video hardware.

The fact of the matter is that the software industry has the ability to optimize the code of their gaming engines to run magnificently on older hardware. However they need to spend time, and thus money, optimizing code in this way. Meanwhile the hardware industry sees that they can profit immensely from the gaming industry's laziness by touting SLI and new generations of video platforms almost every year. I may be getting a little paranoid in saying that the hardware industry's indulgence of the gaming industry's laziness only makes them more lethargic to optimizing their software. Why spend tons of time and money when the hardware does exist for the game to run in its current, unorganized messy state?

There is good in quad-SLI, however it does not lie in the gaming industry. Having four workstation cards in a machine would make for a truly astounding CAD or 3D workstation.

[edDV]

What does SLI have to do with anything video?

This is a lucrative niche market for low IQ trust fund babies wanting to pimp their PC for game performance scores. These people are rarely smart enough to play the games without cheats.

[FulciLives]

I love computer games ... probably because I grew up when most of the good games were computer games. But times have changed ...

I read something a year or two ago in a computer magazine editorial that made sense.

It went something like this ...

"Why spend $400 or more on your computer's video/graphics card just to play games?

Let me clue you in on something.

Sony makes this device called a Playstation 2 that is made just for games and it only costs $200"

LOL

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[Supreme2k]

Exactly!

If game companies want to make games for the PC, make them within reason for the general public. In general, PCs should be used for the "serious" work, and games should be played on game-specific systems.

I've been ranting about bloatware for years, but nobody listens. Kids today with their slide-rules, digitalized rocking and rolling, and Notepad programs that take up five gigs

I mean, look at a game like (gl)Quake, coming in at about 50 megs (?) and requiring less than 200Mhz (that's 0.2Ghz, kids!)

[FulciLives]

PC games have gotten a bit out of touch but perhaps with the Xbox 360 and upcomming PS3 ... well my point is that game systems have finally reached a level of technology that pretty much matches that of a PC ... so now we can enjoy quality games on a console without spending $400+ on a video card for the computer.

You might argue that the Xbox 360 Premium system is $400 so what's the difference?

The difference is the Xbox 360 will most likely outlast a $400 videocard.

Buy a $400 video card now and I ensure that before the Xbox 360 is "out-dated" you will need a new $400 video card to play the next gen of PC games.

The PS3 appears to be so advanced that it will surely last at least 2 or 3 cycles of $400 "next-gen" computer based video card goodness.

I'm all for better looking games but to have to blow $400 or more once a year just to play the newest game is retarded.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[rallynavvie]

Well fortunately you can usually go two generations of video cards before some current games stop supporting older hardware. I mean Battlefield 2 doesn't support GeForce4 cards without a modification to it only because GF4s don't support DX9 natively. And you also don't need to spend the big money on the fastest card, in fact I never have looking back at my last 4 video cards, they were all in the middle and performed great. GF4 4400, GFX 5700 Ultra, Quadro FX1100, and my current GF6 6600GT. Oddly the 4400 was the most expensive at $200-something, and other than the Quadro the rest were $150. I'd pay $150 every two years to be able to play the latest games, not necessarily playing them at max detail.

What I'm arguing is that SLI will force us to buy more than one of these cards, effectively doubling what we were paying before for video cards. My only hope is in apathetic platform manufacturers not implementing SLI across their entire spectrum of gaming system boards. As long as SLI isn't physically part of more than 50% of boards on the market we are probably safe. It was just this whole move from AGP to PCI-E which happened almost overnight had me worried it was going to slide right into pushing SLI.

However I would love to see four Quadro 4500s on a good workstation chipset eat through a massive CAD drawing or render an extremely complicated 3D object in realtime without a hiccup. That's what SLI should be driven toward, not the consumer markets.

[Nelson37]

SLI is neat, but there are just not enough people willing to spend that kind of money. For all practical purposes, it might as well not exist at all.

Marketing will always hoopla the latest, sexiest, and most expensive product, this has a trickle-down to the lower end of the market. It's like Ford bringing back the GT40, they won't make any money on it but it will bring people into the showroom.

It's been less than a year ago that I finally threw away my Voodoo2 card. Just bought Doom3 for $19.95. Haven't rushed out to buy the latest game since SWOTL, since that crushing disappointment I wait till they hit the bargain bin, and if the games go there fairly quickly, I don't buy them at all.